Psychometric Properties of the Leahy Emotional Schema Scale-II among Iranian Students

Increasing interest in meta-cognitive and emotional acceptance-based therapies and using such therapies necessitate the development and validation of measures to assess cognitive and emotional constructs which underlie the assessment of therapeutic outcomes. This study examined the psychometric properties of the 28-item Leahy Emotional Schema Scale-II (LESS-II) in a large sample of Iranian university students. Six hundred and thirteen students completed the LESS-II, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-Second Version (AAQ-II), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), and the Metacognition Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30). The results of both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the 28-item LESS-II had seven factors, including devalued and simplistic view of emotion/overly rational, loss of control/blame, rumination/incomprehensibility, non-acceptance of feelings, invalidation and low consensus, low expression, and numbness. The reliability and validity of the LESS-II were confirmed. Also, the two-factor structure suggested in previous studies was found to have an acceptable fit. Despite the limitations of the current study and the need for further research, the results suggest that the LESS-II with seven-factor and two-factor models is a reliable and valid scale among Iranian university students.